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Ashes and Action
For All Nails #162: Ashes and Action by Mike Keating ---- :Just south of Webster, New York, N.C., CNA FN1 :7 March 1975 :3:00 PM Kevin Fleming of the CBI walked through the charred remains of the army club shed. His last report from Agent Richards-Keith had been two weeks ago. Now he would never hear from the undercover agent again. The tool shed had been set on fire with the body of his man inside, and dental records had been needed to identify the dead man. Preliminary investigation said it looked like an explosive had been set off. Except for the explosive and the body, the whole compound had been cleaned out. The house and garage had not been set on fire, but they had been wiped meticulously clean of anything which could be used as evidence. There were not even any fingerprints. Fleming was amazed at the effort it must have taken to wipe prints off every surface in a whole house which had so many living and operating there for so long. Fleming sighed. Now he had to start over. This time, the army clubs would be more difficult to infiltrate. ---- :Northeast of Westborough, Massachusetts FN2 :10 March 1975 :10:30 AM The man once named Brian Donaldson, then John Hanson, now called William Smythe, looked around the table. Sixteen men sat there. All of them were either leaders of a chapter of the Brotherhood or prominent members of affiliated societies. Two were from the Tree of Liberty Group; over at one corner sat Jason Yates of the Crispus Attucks Society. FN3 Everyone else headed a Brotherhood chapter. George Eskin-Brookline had been President of the Brotherhood for eight years. He was the one to call the meeting to order. "Gentlemen, you all know of the support we have been receiving from the USM, and then from private sources based within that country. Many of you have met their agent in person. FN4 Some of that money has been invested wisely, and will continue to work for us in years to come. The rest has gone to supply our cause with weapons, ammunition, and explosives. Three compounds could not have been purchased without these funds. "Now the time has come to do something. We have been accumulating materiel for almost three years. Some chapters have so much they have no more storage space for it. I say it is time to put it to good use. There are a number of military bases and administrative targets throughout the CNA that are vulnerable to some sort of attack, most likely a lorry bombing. If we achieve high enough casualties, the revolution will be starting in the right direction." Smythe/Donaldson spoke up now. "I don't think that's such a good idea, boss." All heads turned to face him, as if on swivels. "At the moment, we don't have anything close to the membership we'd need for a successful revolution. The overwhelming majority of the CNA is loyal to the Design. We may be able to take power with all this ordnance -- and even that's not a sure bet -- but not hold it for any length of time. Even if we did, it'd have to be through repression of the people we're trying to free. This'll set us back; everyone will think we're murderers and scum. What we need is something big to swing more support our way." Eskin-Brookline was intrigued, but slightly angry. He didn't like being disagreed with in front of others; but at the same time he valued an opposing viewpoint to keep him from sending the movement down the wrong road. What that meant was that any opposing viewpoint had better turn out to be right. "What do you propose, then?" "Something to achieve maximum damage, yes. Something people will notice. But it'll need to be something with minimum casualties, not maximum. No casualties at all would be nice if we can do it. If we are seen to go out of our way to avoid killing anyone, we're standing in a pretty spot." FN5 Donaldson turned to the man sitting two spots to his left. Julius Bauch was the head of the chapter in Endicott. FN6 "Julius, didn't you tell me a couple months ago that one of your men was a night watchman at the Confederation office building down your way?" Julius nodded. "Yes, he's a reasonably good intelligence source for anything that goes on into the wee hours." "I'm proposing we hit this building with a lorry bomb. Enough to destroy the whole thing. And we do it in the middle of the night when there's no one there but guards. Your man gets us in, we use tranquilizer guns on the other guards, then move them to safety before the bomb goes off." "What about peripheral damage? Surrounding businesses, anyone happening to be in the area?" wondered George. Donaldson was prepared for this question. "I've been to Endicott a few times. I know that for some stupid reason that building isn't centrally located within the city. It's on the northern edge of town. Hardly anything in the way of business, not even to cater to the people working at the building. Certainly no innocents in that neighborhood at that hour." "Sounds worth a go. Gentlemen, you had best have something here," warned the President of the Brotherhood. ---- Forward to FAN #163: Sweet Sorrow. Forward to 13 March 1975: A Boy's Life. Forward to Harold Pickett: And the Walls Came Down. Return to For All Nails. Category:Pickett